Oooh, I like that. I have a couple of thoughts that I'm not sure I can tie into something coherent, but I'll try.
First is that the reveal is always tied in some way to an audience's willing suspension of disbelief. There's a bit of a bargain in which the audience agrees to let the performer control the sequence of information in return for being invested in the payoff at the end.
That's why a reveal, done badly, feels like it betrays a trust; that it's just manipulative or falls flat and the audience wonders why they every suspended disbelief.
Second, this connects to a topic that I muse about from time to time -- what is the best way to set the context for a performance? It's easy to think of an art or as being able to speak for itself (and, certainly, it's often a bad idea to try to speak *for it*).
But it's still the case that the audience comes in with certain expectations and that it's helpful to signal to people what is an appropriate expectation (I know less about theater, but in music genre is often the first signal that tells people what to expect -- if they hear rock or blues or synth-pop it locates their expectations).
[As a footnote there's an anecdote in the book Sleights of Mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleights_of_Mind in which (IIRC) Susana talks about going to a magic show while feeling sick, and not being fooled by any of the illusions because she was distracted enough by her illness that she didn't have enough attention to follow what the magician was doing and so her attention never got misdirected. She didn't have the energy to invest in the story that the magician was telling and so wasn't part of the reveal.]
I think you’re definitely onto something there when you connect the suspension of disbelief with this concept of reveal and betrayal. Did you read my piece about that, Method, I think? That’s long been something I’m fascinated with. Speaking of,
The sick woman who couldn’t be distracted properly is FASCinating and I MUST read further into that. Whoa.
I recommend that book. I appreciate that it isn't written as, "we neuroscientists will now explain magic" but, instead, "we neuroscientists will try to learn from people doing magic because they clearly know a _lot_ about perception and attention."
One of my favorite examples is (IIRC) that if you move your hand in a straight line the audience's eye will tend to stay on your hand, but if you move it in an arc, the eye will tend to jump ahead to predict where the arc is going.
Oooh, I like that. I have a couple of thoughts that I'm not sure I can tie into something coherent, but I'll try.
First is that the reveal is always tied in some way to an audience's willing suspension of disbelief. There's a bit of a bargain in which the audience agrees to let the performer control the sequence of information in return for being invested in the payoff at the end.
That's why a reveal, done badly, feels like it betrays a trust; that it's just manipulative or falls flat and the audience wonders why they every suspended disbelief.
Second, this connects to a topic that I muse about from time to time -- what is the best way to set the context for a performance? It's easy to think of an art or as being able to speak for itself (and, certainly, it's often a bad idea to try to speak *for it*).
But it's still the case that the audience comes in with certain expectations and that it's helpful to signal to people what is an appropriate expectation (I know less about theater, but in music genre is often the first signal that tells people what to expect -- if they hear rock or blues or synth-pop it locates their expectations).
[As a footnote there's an anecdote in the book Sleights of Mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleights_of_Mind in which (IIRC) Susana talks about going to a magic show while feeling sick, and not being fooled by any of the illusions because she was distracted enough by her illness that she didn't have enough attention to follow what the magician was doing and so her attention never got misdirected. She didn't have the energy to invest in the story that the magician was telling and so wasn't part of the reveal.]
I think you’re definitely onto something there when you connect the suspension of disbelief with this concept of reveal and betrayal. Did you read my piece about that, Method, I think? That’s long been something I’m fascinated with. Speaking of,
The sick woman who couldn’t be distracted properly is FASCinating and I MUST read further into that. Whoa.
I'll go read the piece on Method.
I recommend that book. I appreciate that it isn't written as, "we neuroscientists will now explain magic" but, instead, "we neuroscientists will try to learn from people doing magic because they clearly know a _lot_ about perception and attention."
One of my favorite examples is (IIRC) that if you move your hand in a straight line the audience's eye will tend to stay on your hand, but if you move it in an arc, the eye will tend to jump ahead to predict where the arc is going.
Oh wow I need this book apparently.
I believe I just reshared Method and tagged you? It should show up.